


A Simple Invitation

by pentagonbuddy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 08:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20468108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentagonbuddy/pseuds/pentagonbuddy
Summary: Felix, now a mercenary, and Sylvain, now a margrave, find that their paths diverge after the war. When they finally cross again, Sylvain won't let him go without a fight.





	A Simple Invitation

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't write this with a particular route in mind save for "not Blue Lions", and i took many creative liberties so this should be light on spoilers!

“Here I am.”

There he is, Felix Hugo Fraldarius, sharp-eyed and scowling. Not a ghost, somehow, as he approaches Sylvain at a table set for a teatime of two. His cold gaze sweeps over the table, lingering on the plate of cinnamon candies near his intended seat. Sylvain’s side is comparatively bare, save for a fresh cup of Almyran pine needles near a floral teapot. Steam wavers along a breeze that rustles the garden as Felix steps from sunlight into dappled shadows.

He looms over the table with one hand on his hip.

“Wow! You really came!” Sylvain scoots his chair back to stand and drag his dear friend into a hug. The fur lining his cape reeks of things Sylvain refuses to dwell on, not when he can search for the familiar contours of his body underneath.

Felix, for his part, is stone-still as the garden statues. “You thought I’d refuse?”

After one last squeeze, Sylvain releases him with a shoulder pat and gestures for him to sit. “I dunno, you seem like a busy guy these days.” He leans over to pour Felix a cup of tea before the man even sits down. “It’s been waaay too long since I heard from you.”

Felix shifts, unfolds his arms, and takes his first sip with no regard for the heat, though he inhales with a sharp wince. “I don’t have time for letters.”

A flash of sunlight strikes when Felix moves—the glint of his sword’s engraved silver hilt. The tassel attached to it is an arterial red that may or may not be its original color. It’s a nice sword either way. Felix probably wears it to bed.

Sylvain chuckles at the thought. Felix’s raised teacup hides his mouth, but even so he knows there’s a scowl under there.

“It’s—it’s funny for us to meet again like this.” Sylvain ruffles the back of his hair. “I never thought I’d be your boss.”

“You’re not. My work here is done.” Voice calm, even, betraying nothing as he sets his cup down.

Sylvain’s porcelain smile takes a wry twist. “Is it now?”

“You’re a busy man too, aren’t you, Margrave Gautier?”

“_Margrave Gautier?_”

“You sound like you’re living up to the title, that’s all. I was surprised to see how well you manage your affairs. Thought for sure I’d arrive and find you halfway across the Kingdom in some commoner’s bed.”

“Sure, but all work and no play makes Margrave Gautier a bored boy.” Sylvain raises his own teacup in a salute. “So I’m glad you made it—really. I’d drop dead from a broken heart if you left right after your work.”

“I’m sure your wife would patch it up.”

“Oh, yeah? Who’d fix yours?”

Finally, a crack in Felix’s armor as he smiles. “Do I look like a married man?” As quickly as it came, it’s swept away with a scowl. “Don’t answer that.”

“Hey, you never know when you’ll meet the right person.”

“I don’t have time.”

Sylvain drums his fingers against the table. “Geeze, what do you have time for?”

A sharp _clink_ cuts through the air as Felix returns his teacup to its plate.

“No, no, lemme guess,” Sylvain says, blocking the incoming riposte. Elbows on the table, he uses his fingers to count. “Training, fighting, a bit of eating and sleeping here and there.” With a wink he wiggles his pinky for one more item. “Maybe you polish your sword while thinking of your old pal every now and then?”

“_Sylvain!_”

Sylvain laughs and leans away.

“Incorrigible as ever.” There’s a bite to Felix’s voice. “And Dorothea just lets you get away with it all.”

“Hey now, she joins in the fun.” He tilts his chair backwards despite the way it wobbles. “In fact, why not come in for a song? Hers, or maybe we could get you to sing—”

“I’ll pass.”

Bright-eyed with a stonecut expression, Felix meets Sylvain’s stare for only a moment, then looks to the tangle of roses that creep towards the sun on the trellis surrounding them. A few years ago Sylvain would have seen what was hiding in the shadows of his friend’s eyes, but now?

He brushes the thought away with a dismissive gesture. “I’d love for you to at least meet the kids while you’re here. They’d get a kick out of your fruit-chopping skills.”

Felix laughs under his breath at that last comment. “You have kids?”

“Of course! I’ve become a true noble—people love to speculate which ones are legit. My darling Dorothea thinks it makes for a fun guessing game.”

Evidently Felix didn’t, judging by his blank look. “You never change.”

“_Someone_ has to give the other nobles things to gossip about.”

Never one for gossip, Felix fills the ensuing silence with tea. The harsh contours of his face smooth ever so slightly when he closes his eyes to enjoy the aroma, his chapped lips lingering at the cup’s edge.

Cold and full to the brim, Sylvain’s tea remains untouched beside him. Eventually Felix catches on to the staring, then folds his arms and leans away with a huff.

Sylvain keeps his grin soft, pliant. “There’s all sorts of things I could use your help with. I’d pay you well, y’know.”

“Like what?” There’s a sliver of interest—the first genuine sign he’s seen—in Felix’s quirked eyebrow.

“I’m thinking the Gautier family is done with lances. Could really use a master swordsman to teach some of the older kiddos.”

“I’m not a babysitter.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Sylvain coos, “Can’t you spare a few lessons for me?”

“My point stands. You can’t pay me to waste my time.” Felix finishes his tea and pops a cinnamon candy into his mouth. Sylvain’s never been a fan of the uncomfortable spice that crowds out the sweet in those.

“Besides, I leave tomorrow for Sreng territory. There’s a rebellion there, I hear their leader is a master of the blade.” A quiet laugh. “I’ll see about that.”

When Sylvain finally takes a sip from his own tea, he finds it bitter and cold. Pine needles, Almyran or otherwise, rarely make for a pleasant drink in his experience.

“I have my doubts,” Felix continues, unprompted, “I haven’t fought a worthy opponent in years.”

Sylvain leans forward with one elbow on the table, sighing as he rests his chin in his hand. “Used to know a certain someone who talked like that. Remember him?”

Of course talk of a “worthy opponent” is the only thing that gets Felix to turn towards him with his full attention.

“Goofy skull, red eyes, super into our professor?”

“Ah, the Death Knight?” Felix crunches the candy loud enough for him to hear. “It’s a shame I wasn’t the one to kill him.”

A shame. The sort of shame that pushes Sylvain to lift his head and slip one hand, clenched into a fist, underneath the table. “...Hmm, no, I take that back. You remind me of someone else.”

He shoves his tea away harder than he intends; a splash stains the tablecloth. Felix’s response is a hand on his sword. Only a reflex, surely, something unconscious that stems from his years where every friend is a potential foe.

“Used to be a real nice guy, I still don’t get what happened with him.” This ugly, low note creeps into Sylvain’s voice. “Ended up the kind of guy who had to be ‘put down like a rabid dog.’ Or boar, I dunno. You had lots of names.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel bad?”

“What? Nah, I’m just sayin’.”

It’s so simple to empty his words of all meaning, to lance the emotion from them and let it drain into an easy smile. For the span of a heartbeat he wonders if Felix will call him out—the shift in tone is obvious to anyone who knows him—but the reprimand never comes.

“I’m a mercenary. I don’t roam the countryside skewering whoever I come across.” Felix makes no attempt to hide his sneer. Not that he ever does. “The job isn’t about killing. Guarding shipments, escort missions—”

“Isn’t that stuff just a waste of your time?”

“It’s not like I haven’t thought about this before. And it’s not like I was wrong about the boar, either. Just...” Felix picks up another candy, rolls it between his fingers instead of eating it. “Wrong about myself.”

Wind rustles through the garden again, cold against the scant bits of Sylvain’s exposed skin.

“But like, is this what makes you happy?”

In a sudden show of force, Felix crushes the candy in his fist. “I’m a mercenary. Not a noble, not this saint you seem to want. Never thought I’d hear you lecture me about my conduct.”

“Hey, hey, it’s not a lecture, it’s...it’s small talk. Really bad small talk. Can we start over?”

Felix shoves his chair back and stands. “I didn’t come here for small talk.”

Sylvain mirrors him, rattling the entire table in the process. “Then why _did_ you come?”

“Because you asked.”

He makes it sound so simple. “That’s all it took? Then I’ll ask you to stay just a bit longer.” Sylvain reaches for the edge of Felix’s fur-lined gloves.

Felix intercepts the hand with his own. “I...can’t stand places like this anymore. They’re too quiet. Boring.”

Ah, yes. His home filled with laughter and songs and endless busywork, the parade of campaigns against the northern border, the requests for aid, the reaper’s spectre that still holds sway over Gautier lands—quiet. Boring.

“But that’s not your fault,” Felix says.

Quickly, before any regrets can set in, Felix yanks him into a hug. Sylvain lands against him with a soft thud and wraps his arms around his lower back in a nostalgic instinct. He buries his face into that reeking fur hood in search of a neck to nuzzle.

Awful. It’s awful what that smell makes him think about.

“...You haven’t forgotten our promise, right?” he whispers against warm skin.

“Of course not.” Felix turns his head, allows him to press insistent kisses to his neck. Bathing is no longer a priority for him, going by the acrid taste of dried sweat and death on his skin. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“So, you planning to cut me down?” That same taste lingers on Sylvain’s tongue, in his tone.

Felix takes a quick step back, gripping his sword’s hilt while his eyes roam Sylvain’s body in search of danger.

Sylvain raises his hands, palms outward in surrender. “Take it easy, buddy.” He rubs the back of his head. “I just mean that if you keep running off on me, that’s not really sticking together until we die. Seems like we aren’t dying today, sooo...”

“Don’t—don’t joke about that!”

“What? Just pointing out the obvious. So can’t you at least stay for dinner or something? Dorothea and I could—”

“Sylvain.” Felix’s hand strays from his sword. “I’m—”

“A mercenary. I know, I know.” He steps close enough to smell the death on his friend once more.

Felix takes another step back. “I don’t know if I can keep our promise. But I haven’t forgotten.”

All it would take is a few steps to close the distance between them. Sylvain remains where he is. “Gee, thanks for letting me know.”

“You seem happy. I’m happy for you. ” Felix turns away, grass crunching under his boots as he starts to leave. “Don’t expect to see me again.”

* * *

Like old wounds that ache in the winter, on certain days and certain months with uncertain timing, memories of Felix come to inflame Sylvain’s thoughts. Chats with his friends, rooms in his household, even his dreams are haunted by a prickly, crossed-arm ghost when it happens, the kind he’ll never exorcise when there’s still hope that he’s alive. With each passing year, that hope grows dimmer.

The two women in front of him are his best shot at uncovering an answer. Shamir, who emanates a chill despite her seat near the fireplace, and Catherine, who sits with her arm wrapped around Shamir’s shoulder. She’s oblivious to the cold, or perhaps so hot-blooded that she doesn’t feel it.

Sylvain certainly does in his chair across from them. Ever the gracious host—he hopes—he’s offered them tea and a cozy spot for a private discussion.

The usual household bustle, muffled through the reception room’s door, reassures him that he’s not really alone, even if sitting in his too-large chair while they’re thigh-to-thigh makes him wonder. Dorothea has her own opinions on Felix—none that compel her to stay for this discussion—but they can at least agree that it’s romantic to search for him. Something to write an opera over, though there’s been fierce debates over who’d play his friend’s part. Try as he might to be brief, his scramble to explain the situation is eventually silenced by Shamir.

“He’s dead.”

Perhaps it’d be better to ask their opinions on the future opera.

Catherine squeezes her partner’s shoulder. “So you got an old sword. Doesn’t mean he’s dead.” She gestures to the velvet-wrapped bundle in Sylvain’s lap. “It’s not like he sent you Thunderbrand—we don’t even know if he’s the one who sent it.”

“It doesn’t matter who sent it. If you can accept the worst, you’ll be ready for anything.”

Was dying the worst? He wonders. What if Felix is alive out there, miserable and starving after some divine punishment? What if Felix has forgotten all about him? Maybe the sword symbolizes a knot he doesn’t want to untangle.

“I don’t know,” Sylvain admits to his fur rug, then looks up to his guests with a brittle smile. “But that’s where a couple of heroes like you come in, here to help a guy in need.”

Shamir scoffs. “Heroes?”

“Absolutely!” Catherine tips her flask of whiskey his direction. “We’re the cream of the cream, aren’t we? If anyone can find him, it’ll be Shamir.”

A small smile, soon hidden by her teacup, graces Shamir’s lips. “And not you?”

Catherine flashes her smirk for the whole world to see. “You’re the one who can spot someone from across Fódlan, Miss Sniper.”

“That doesn’t make me a hero.”

“Oh, but what about those stories of you striking down the rich and corrupt? And how you two are the saviors of all the orphans and grandmas in Fódlan?” Sylvain slumps against his chair with an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t tell me those are fake.”

“Not a single one!” Catherine says with a cackle.

“Except for the one where you struck down twelve demonic beasts in a single swing.”

She unhooks her arm from around Shamir to show off a proper flex. “It was a _really_ good swing.”

“I remember a few more than twelve.” Sylvain leans forward with his elbow on his knee and chin resting in his hand.

“Careful, Margrave.” Shamir sips her tea. “If you’re that gullible, you’ll end up as one of our targets.”

His smile sharpens. It’s not her words but the way she leans into Catherine, the pink tinge to her cheeks that isn’t from the tea, how Catherine’s easy laugh brings a smile to her face. The Shamir he knew from the old days was always staring off in the distance, ready to take flight like an arrow without so much as a glance behind her. Or maybe not. Maybe the steel-edged tongue and distance she keeps form the shell of someone tender, someone whose only self-expression is through a weapon.

With Catherine by her side, Shamir’s dark eyes glow with a warmth he sees from his wife, his family, his friends both old and new. A warmth he hasn’t felt from Felix in years. Maybe if Felix had been more like Shamir or if he had been more like Catherine, then somehow...

A chill settles over him; the heat radiating from the fireplace doesn’t quite reach his chair.

“I see my reputation hasn’t slipped past you. You really are as perceptive as Catherine says.” He winks. “Still just as gorgeous, too.”

“Your reputation hasn’t changed since the Academy.”

Sylvain throws his hands up in mock exasperation. “I invite you to tea and you wound me like this? C’mon, Shamir.”

Living up to her own reputation, Shamir pierces right through his faux good cheer. “I thought you invited us here for a job.”

“Would you have come just to visit an old friend?”

He expects Catherine to cut in, but Shamir continues. “I suppose.”

Nah, Felix isn’t like her at all.

“Consider it a friendly job offer.” Despite his best attempts, Sylvain’s smile crumbles. He stands and paces around the room so that he doesn’t have to acknowledge their reactions. “I’ll pay whatever you want, as much as you want. Money, booze, my firstborn Crest baby—”

Though Catherine perks up at the mention of more booze, she cuts him off with a dismissive gesture. “We don’t need any of those.”

“We could use the money.” Shamir sets her tea aside, glaring when Catherine elbows her. “But I can think of a few favors this would repay.”

Sylvain claps his hands together. “Then it’s a deal!”

“What do you want us to do if—”

“When,” Catherine says.

“—we find him?”

He rubs his chin for a moment. “Drag him here by his ponytail, kicking and screaming?”

Catherine’s laugh echoes throughout the room. “Leave it to me!”

With a roll of her eyes, Shamir stands up. “You joke, but we might meet him on the battlefield.”

He stares without so much as a grimace as the image of Felix _trying_ to dodge Shamir’s arrows invades his mind. In his traitorous thoughts, his friend ends up a pincushion. Sheesh, but does he really think so little of Felix’s skills? He could dodge, surely, and reach Shamir, but if he took away Catherine’s _partner_—

Catherine waves a hand in front of his face. “You in there?”

“Just, uh, thinking about what I’d want you to tell him.”

He returns to his chair to fetch the velvet bundle, which he unwraps with a touch reserved for lovers. Inside is Felix’s sword, the fancy one with the scarlet tassel, made by some Zoltan guy if he remembers right. Catherine takes the sword when he offers it, pulls it halfway out of its sheath, then whistles in approval as she inspects the blade.

Shamir joins her with a light touch to Catherine’s shoulder. “We’ll at least send you any leads. But if we find him, well?”

A small, nasty part of him wants to see Felix dragged back—by his ponytail or otherwise—with a generous helping of bruises for all he’s done, but then what?

“Tell him that Margrave Gautier cordially invites him to tea.” He shoots them both his brightest grin. ”Exact wording, please and thanks.”

His own cheeks flush when Shamir hides a snicker behind her glove. Catherine nods at him and slides the sword back into its sheath with a _clink_.

“And while you’re at it, give him back his stupid sword. It’ll just bum me out if I keep it.”

* * *

Rain spills from a storm-grey sky as Sylvain watches a carriage approach the entrance of the Gautier estate. He stands safe with Dorothea under the entrance overhang; a horse’s high-pitched whinny rises above the rain as the driver pulls to a stop. The silhouette in the carriage curtains makes his heart beat faster, and faster still when a servant opens the door and tries to help the man inside out. Said servant almost slips in the mud as he’s shoved away.

Dorothea squeezes his hand before she lets go. “Sylvie, remind your kitten not to hassle our staff.”

Sylvain can’t help how he laughs as he dashes into the downpour, almost knocking the poor servant into the mud a second time on the way. There’s so many greetings in his throat that they all pile up and choke each other out. Instead, he claps his hands on Felix’s shoulders, his grin taking a curious twist when he feels an odd lump at the right one. The sleeve there is empty and twisted into a knot near its diamond pattern.

Felix cuts him off before he can ask about it. “I got your ridiculous invitation.”

* * *

One of his older kids holds the door open for them as they step inside, with two of his youngest peering at this prickly stranger. There’s brief introductions, queries about what’s wrong with him and his “tiny arm,” and Dorothea’s tittering laugh as she shoos them away.

Once it’s only the three of them, she fusses over Felix, brushing her fingertips over his clothes and clucking her tongue in disapproval. Felix, despite his best efforts, blushes at the attention.

“It really _has_ been too long,” she says, leaning in to inspect flecks of mud on his face.

Felix fixes his gaze on a nearby wall lined with portraits. “I suppose.”

“Have you been doing well?”

“I suppose.”

“Do you think you’ll ever work on your conversation skills?” She licks her thumb, then smears it across his cheek.

Narrow-eyed and with a barely-concealed hiss, Felix swats her hand away. “I—I don’t see the point.”

Sylvain hides a snicker behind his hand.

“I’ll go get started on some tea, Sylvie. Come fetch me when you’re...” She looks between Felix, damp and scowling, and Sylvain, who wears his bravest smile. “When you’re ready.”

“Sure thing!” Sylvain wraps his arm around Felix’s shoulder and guides him to a hallway. “Say, Felix, how about we get you out of those wet clothes?”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“At least the cloak. You’re dripping all over my nice floor.”

Felix’s clenches his hand into a fist. “...Fine.”

Sylvain’s grip shifts down to Felix’s hand as he leads him to his bedroom. Unlike his youth, he doesn’t spend much time here when there’s a whole warm house for him, and so the first task is to light a few candles. Rain pitter-patters on the stone outside—the only conversation in the room while he does so.

With their shadows dancing in the candlelight, Sylvain ushers Felix away from a fur rug and rests his hands on his friend’s shoulders. Felix’s stare, sharper than any blade he’s ever known, is pointed at him as Sylvain busies himself with his soggy cloak. The clasps are different, easier to work with one hand, and once it’s off he hangs it over the back of a spruce chair.

In lieu of crossing his arms, Felix puts his hand on his hip and looks down at him. “First you assault me with your family, then you strip me? Unbelievable.”

There’s still a sword attached to his hip—one that once darkened his doorstep years ago—and as much a Sylvain wants to slip that off, too, he’s sure Felix would break at least one of his fingers along the way. Something he could probably manage with _no_ arms.

“There’d be less of them if you hadn’t waited so long. Now we have grandkids to throw at you, too.”

Sylvain takes a cloth bearing his family’s ghoulish, scythe-like crest from his bedside table and uses it to dry Felix’s hair—a charitable term for the spiky mess he leaves it—until the other man swats his hands away and grabs the cloth.

“Are you just going to stand there leaving puddles in your own home?” Felix says as he dries himself. Once he’s done, he throws the cloth at Sylvain.

Sylvain looks down at the cloth in his hand with a small smile. “The floor could use a rinse.”

Talking like this, it almost feels like Felix never left.

But...he had. He’s back, sure—being able to even think that has Sylvain misty-eyed—but he’d _left_. Light and easygoing as his heart usually is, the thought is an ember that burns through his chest.

Water drips between his fingers and down his knuckles as he squeezes the cloth.

“I...thought you were dead.”

“I had some close calls.” Felix looks towards his missing arm. “But it’s never stopped me. In fact, I’m working on this one-handed style—”

“I don’t care.” The words come out with years of bitterness he can’t bite back. He clears his throat to try again. “Yikes, not sure what’s gotten into me. What I _mean_ is—”

Felix narrows his eyes as he steps towards him. “Drop the sappy act.”

“What, you’d rather I be angry?”

“You didn’t call me here to woo me. So don’t waste your breath on false niceties.”

They circle each other as duelists, as one predator sizing up another. No, only Felix must think of it like that—all Sylvain sees is a wounded animal.

“Look, I’m not going to yell, or lecture, or cry, or whatever. Just not my style.”

“At least wipe that grin off your face.”

Sylvain makes a show of wiping his mouth with the cloth. “Don’t tell me you came all this way just to pick a fight?”

“Fine, I’m here for the tea.”

What has Fódlan come to if _he’s_ the one taking this seriously? Sylvain balls the cloth up and shoves it into Felix’s chest, where it hits with a wet slap before dropping to the floor. “I thought you were dead, man. D-E-A-D.”

“Even if I'd died, you have a whole world of people to coddle you. You’d have survived.”

For all the times Felix has called him a fool, right now it feels true enough to burn his cheeks and make his eyes sting. How naive it is to cling to some words older than all his kids. Words spoken when _they_ were kids, words so easy to say when they knew nothing about the patchwork world and broken future ahead of them.

“Is that why you left? I wasn’t, what, devoted enough to you?”

“You seemed fine without me and I had my own path to walk, that’s all.” Felix turns his far-away gaze to the window. Sylvain follows the look and realizes how quiet it is now that the rain has given them a reprieve. “Things are different now.”

Different. Boy, they sure are _different_, yet Felix hasn’t changed one bit. If he has, Sylvain can’t see past his tangle of thorns. Have all these years of wandering changed him so irrevocably? Has he really changed, or has some ugly truth seeped to the surface? His ceaseless quest for strength is to protect his friends, right...?

One of those friends comes to mind, the same one from their last conversation: Dimitri, wild and one-eyed with blood forever matted in his hair, on his clothes. Eventually, that blood became his own.

“What changed?” Despite his earlier words, there’s a warble to his voice that signals yelling or crying. Maybe both.

“I wanted to keep our promise.”

Part of him wants to drag Felix out by his empty sleeve and throw him into the mud. “So, what, you just changed your mind and came back on a whim?”

“It wasn’t a whim.” The way Felix reaches for his missing arm—no doubt to cross it—makes him wonder how recent the loss is. “Every time I was bleeding out like an idiot, I’d see your face. You’d make for one annoying ghost, you know that?”

A laugh escapes Sylvain, or a sob, and what difference would it make? He reaches up to wipe his eyes, wishing he still had that cloth. Felix leans down, picks it up, and presses it into his free hand.

Sylvain uses it to blow his nose.

“Disgusting.”

He flings his arms around Felix and makes sure to rub his snot all against Felix’s turtleneck. “That’s what you get, making me worry so much.”

“Sylvain!” Felix stumbles backwards, goes to catch himself with the wrong arm, and starts to fall until Sylvain takes him by the knees and scoops him up. “Put me down!”

“Nope.” The word comes out smushed as Felix squirms in his arms.

“You want to die together? You’ll get your wish if you don’t knock it off.”

“Never gonna let you go again, bud.”

As much as he wants it to be true, he’s getting too old for these sorts of games. After just a few spins around the room—Felix threatening his life the entire time—he sets him down and doubles over, sucking down air in between sobs of laughter.

A light hand touches his shoulder. He looks to see Felix, whose ice-bitten edges are colder than the chilliest winter in Faerghus, thaw his expression into a small smile. He touches his fingertips, warm despite his glove, first to Sylvain’s cheek, then down to rest a thumb on his bottom lip.

Still teary-eyed, Sylvain stands back up and accepts the invitation with a kiss.

“You really are a fool if you thought I’d break our promise,” Felix breathes against his lips before kissing him again.

“You can call me whatever you like so long as you stay.”

“Then I’ve a lot of catching up to do. You empty-headed, reckless, insincere—”

Sylvain answers every epithet with kiss after kiss after kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> so i noticed felix and sylvain's non-BL paired ending had a small typo of "the two never met again", which simply will not do!
> 
> Shout-out to a good friend as well as my lovely partner for helping me edit <3
> 
> also, it's funny to me how many conversations in-game and in fic take place during tea...truly a game mechanic that's fun to write


End file.
